My local channel kljb fox 18 quad cites comes only in Spanish audio. I couldn’t watch the football game today with the Tablo had to plug into the regular tv input jack to here English. Help. Thanks
I also live in the Quad Cities and for the last two weeks, each NFL game, the announcers only, was in Spanish for both the early game and the late game on Sunday. The referees, commercials, and everything else was in English but not when the announcers were suppose to talk. Also, on both weeks, there was approximately a one minute moment when things returned to normal and then right back to Spanish. I tried everything I could think of to fix this but nothing worked. This same network is always in English except for the NFL games and like I mentioned above, only when the play by play announcers spoke. Extremely frustrating and weird.
And when the antenna is plugged into the TV what does the SAP/alt-audio settings say for all the alt-audio channels?
Could it be that during the NFL game and maybe only the NFL broadcast the SAP settings are incorrect? If the SAP channels are incorrect that is a station problem.
I tried it on Channel 4 WHBF CBS watching the NFL and it was in English, when I flip to Fox it switches to Spanish. If I put the antenna directly into the back of the TV it plays in English on Fox. The Tablo doesn’t allow me an option to switch the audio. We gotta get this fixed.
I would contact the station and have them fix it.
It’s not the stations problem. When I have the antenna plugged into the back of the TV I’m able to switch between Spanish and English audio. Tablo needs to make that an option to be able to switch.
This morning, I talked in length to Tablo about this problem. She checked with other people at Tablo that are suppose to be more knowledgeable in this area and she came back and said these things:
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The problem is stemming from Fox and what they are doing is breaking FCC rules.
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I asked her why it is only happening for us on NFL games and only when the play by play announcers speak. She said it has been a problem for other people listening to the program called “MOM”
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I told her that two weeks ago when this happened that we called friends that didn’t have a Tablo but were using only OTA like us and they reported that their Fox channel was doing the game in English.
She said the reason for that is that Tablo can’t separate the audio from Fox. If they use Spanish, then Tablo will use Spanish. However, non Tablo users of OTA, their TVs can make this separation in audio. That means for them, if Fox does this, then the TV would change the audio from Spanish to English. -
I asked her for suggestions and she suggested as Tim A did, to unplug from Tablo and go directly into the TV for the game and then go back to the normal way by plugging back into Tablo. Or she suggested using a splitter and if necessary, using an amplifier as well.
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Lastly, she suggested calling the local Fox station. I responded that the NFL season will be over before Fox does anything.
I am going to suggest that they fix Tablo so it can change the signal from Spanish to English to make it easier for us that own a Tablo. I have had Tablo for six years and have never encountered this problem and it isn’t a problem with any other program on any network except NFL games. Bizzare
Tablo transcodes the ATSC 1.0 MPEG2/OTA to h.264 in HLS format. Does this allow for multiple audio streams in one video stream?
And just because the SAP labels say Englist/Spanish doesn’t mean that the actual ATSC 1.0 audio fields are filled in properly. And these fields may be needed to select and transcode the audio.
I also in the Quad Cities and yes I have the issue of Spanish language on KLJB programs and football games. KLJB has been changing their channel lineup recently when all this started to happen.
The KLJB web site list John Holst 309-283-4966 (jholst@kljb.com) has there station engineer.
Rich,
I have tried to call the engineers at KLJB 3 times since Sunday and no answer and one of them it went to VM and I left a message asking them to return my call and that didn’t happen as well. I just got off the phone with Tablo and was told that there is absolutely nothing they can do about it from their end. For example, no software updates will correct what is happening. I believe that if I ever get a chance to talk to KLJB, they will just tell me to not use Tablo because I know friends that are using the same OTA antenna as I am and they have no problem with the games in Spanish. Tablo told me that they can’t separate the audio from Spanish to English. I don’t understand this from Tablo’s technical side but for now the only solution is to unhook the coax cable from the antenna and hook directly to the TV. It’s annoying to do this but don’t see much choice at this time. If you hear of any other solutions, please share with all of us.
Larry, thanks for taking the effort to call the TV station. For me it still seems like a Tablo problem as the problem only happens when watching through the Tablo. At minimum they need to add an SAP button to be able to switch the audio back to English. Oh well, I guess it is what it is.
Is a SAP button really going to help if the h.264/HLS file only contains one audio channel?
And if tablo tried to record and translate some of the OTA channels originating in Mexico they would probably blowup. Most are mislabeled so god knows what the ATSC 1.0 audio metadata looks like.
Hey all.
Thanks for the information. Zippy, what you are talking about is way over my knowledge level. LOL
Anyway, I asked two people at Tablo today if this is something they can fix on their end for Tablo users so we don’t have to resort to a hack to get around this situation. Both of them told me their engineers have looked at the problem and there is nothing they can do from Tablo’s end. So, the only thing I did, was to split the OTA signal and that seems to have worked out ok. Of course, there is the annoyance of having to switch the source on the TV from HDMI to TV to be able to overcome the Spanish but it is the only way I believe at this time. In terms of Fox and they told me this is happening on CBS program called Mom as well…I think Fox would say this, “this doesn’t happen to OTA people watching these games that don’t use Tablo, so stop using Tablo”. It just doesn’t make sense to me simply because only the play by play announcers were in Spanish, The referee, when describing the penalty etc was in English… Oh well, now to purchase longer strand of Coax cable.
Things could be worse. You could have a form of the problem on multiple OTT products. This year when I record(DVR) college football games from F1 sports network a lot of the commercials are/playback in spanish.
Of course trying to explain this to a sling chat bot is like talking to a turnip.
Zippy, sometimes when I try to explain things to a human it’s like talking to a turnip as well. LOL
I’m having the same issue with the NFL games, plus Friday Night Smackdown is being broadcast with the visually impaired audio description! I don’t watch live, so is there anyway to solve this for recorded programming? I have an e-mail into the Chief Engineer, I’ll let you all know if I get a response.
I hear your problem. It is a problem caused by using Tablo. Tablo explained that they can’t separate the signal as the network can. I tried twice to get someone from Fox to respond and they didn’t. Since I have used a Tablo for over 6 years, I am not going to quit using it so the only workaround I know is that I just split the signal between the Tablo and the tv and ran the cable from the antenna to the splitter, then from there one line to the Tablo and the other line directly to the tv. When I watch NFL games on Fox, then I use the remote to change from Tablo to the tv with a direct feed from the antenna. It works and I only need to do this for NFL games on Fox. It is frustrating especially when I go to a relative’s house using OTA but not using a Tablo and can watch NFL games on Fox and they are in English. Oh well, if you find a better way, please let us know.
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Got a quick response from the station’s Chief Engineer:
We have experienced this problem since we brought our new network gear that passes all available audio sources from the networks online. It only affects Tablo users. Tablo support has been less than helpful and trying to blame us for broadcasting the wrong audio. But as all cable, satellite and antenna viewers, other than Tablo users are receiving the correct audio, this would suggest that their equipment locks onto the secondary audio program in the stream (SAP), which is a feature we are required to broadcast, as Tablo is also required to have the ability to turn this feature on and off on the DVR. By what I have heard from other Tablo users, there is no option for SAP/MTS to select descriptive audio or available foreign languages on their equipment.
I have asked Tablo support for user manuals to assist in resolving this issue and have received no response.
My suggestions would be, without anymore input from Tablo, to delete KLJB from the channel lineup and rescan for it to see if it will decode the right audio program, or factory reset the DVR and scan all channels again. This will ensure that all channel setting are deleted and rescanned with new data.
Check the setting menu for any audio settings mentioning SAP or MTS.
Again with nothing more that the user manual on the Tablo website, I am flying blind trying to resolve this.
That’s an interesting response.
I don’t have this problem in my DMA. But I did notice a couple of weeks ago that during the NFL game Fox was basically advertising that it was now broadcasting the Spanish simulcast as a SAP audio channel. And since I don’t have the problem and I use tablo to record that FOX NFL game. What does that say. I’ll have to check to see what SAP audio is included in the linear OTA next Sunday.
Hdhomerun might also pick the wrong SAP channel but since it’s a linear transmission and not transcoded the fire tv app (not Roku) allows for SAP audio channel selection
While the Fox network may require that SAP audio channels be broadcast I don’t think the FCC requires any SAP audio. I have channels with no SAP, channels with SAP audio Engliah only, and channels with 2 SAP audio channels where one is English and one Spanish and the Spanish audio channel never broadcasts anything in Spanish.
To clarify, if the audio streams are labelled, Tablo will always choose the English option.
When incorrect audio is captured on Tablo, it’s usually due to one of two reasons:
1 - The audio tracks are mixed up (Spanish is mistakenly set as EN)
2 - The audio tracks aren’t marked (then Tablo just picks the first one, regardless of the language)
While deleting & re-scanning the channel could resolve the issue, it will only do so if the correct data is being sent from the broadcaster.
If the broadcaster would like to contact us for additional information, they’re welcome to email us: